Trending this week – Whatsapp Messenger

There were many news trending in the techno world but Whatsapp – A popular instant messaging app who have a user base of over one billion of users worldwide now has been on the topmost position in trending this week.

WhatsApp is now free for everyone.! :

The U.S. social networking giant is now turning its attention to generating some revenue from WhatsApp. It scrapped the $0.99 fee last month after the approach hadn’t “worked well” as many of the service’s users don’t have a debit or credit card, according to a WhatsApp blog post from January 18. “For many years, we have asked some people to pay a fee for using WhatsApp after their first year. As we have grown, we have found that this approach hasn’t worked well,” said WhatsApp in a blogpost. Despite not being able to charge its hundreds of millions of users the annual fee, WhatsApp said it would not subject its users to advertisements.
“WhatsApp began as a simple idea: ensuring that anyone could stay in touch with family and friends anywhere on the planet, without costs or gimmicks standing in the way,” the messaging app said in a separate blog post.
“Naturally, people might wonder how we plan to keep WhatsApp running without subscription fees and if today’s announcement means we are introducing third-party advertisements. The answer is no,” added WhatsApp. Without clearly defining the revenue model, WhatsApp said it would test tools starting from 2016 which could replace text messages and phone calls mode of communication among people, businesses and organisations.

WhatsApp to include Facebook integration and include end-to-end encryption in upcoming update :

After recently announcing that it will be free for life, Facebook owned messaging app has a new feature coming up its sleeve. According to developer Javier Santos’ latest Google Plus post, WhatsApp will now give users the option to get notifications which tells them that the messages they are exchanging are encrypted end-to-end.
According to WhatsApp Android version 2.12.413, the messaging apps shows plans to allows users to link their WhatsApp account to their respective Facebook account. Apart from this, WhatsApp has plans to add features such as video calling, information sharing with Facebook and document sharing on WhatsApp as well. You can share your WhatsApp data with Facebook from the Account settings tab. According to the leaks, this is so far an optional features.
The reason behind this move is because of two reasons. First, Many other apps have already updatin such features to their apps. For example Hike Messaging App. The other reason may be to the communication and the sharing of users data should be better between Whatsapp and Facebook apps.

Facebook-owned WhatsApp now has a billion users :

The company announced on Monday, a key milestone for the social network as it searches for ways to monetize the service.
This means WhatsApp has racked up around 100 million users since September 2015 when it last gave an update, putting it above Facebook Messenger’s monthly active user number of 800 million.
In a blog post from the company, WhatsApp disclosed that the most popular messaging service on the planet had recently surpassed 1 billion users. For clarity’s sake, WhatsApp doesn’t specifically cite this audience milestone as reflecting Monthly Active Users (MAUs) or simply total registered accounts. However, data from trusted media sources points to the fact that WhatsApp’s 1 billion user figure indeed represents MAUs. Beyond its headline growth figure, several additional usage stats further speak to the performance’s truly gargantuan scale.

42 billion messages sent daily

1.6 billion pictures shared daily

250 million videos shared daily

Over 1 billion total groups have been created

WhatsApp group member limit upgraded from 100 to 256 :

WhatsApp has increased it group member limit from 100. The number has been increased to 256, which seems to be an odd number to increase the limit to. This could be because of server and platform restrictions. Or this could be a testing stage for WhatsApp to see how the users and businesses make use of it, and gradually increase the member number.

Apart from these updates below are the two news which are going viral on the internet.

Man takes selfie with friend, kills her, posts on WhatsApp :

A 27-year-old youth clicked a selfie with his married friend before allegedly killing her in a tea estate of the state capital.
Going a step further – without the fear of getting caught – he made the selfie as his display picture on WhatsApp and changed his status on the instant messaging application. In his status message, the accused used abusive words to address the woman and dropped hints on eliminating her.

Get hired from home on WhatsApp :

A few students from Xavier Institute of Communications, Mumbai, were in for a surprise when their future employer recently formed a WhatsApp group called the ‘The Internship’ and added them to take their interviews.
The Gurgaon-based creative director who was interviewing them thought it would be more creative in the comfort of their own surroundings. It would also cut down on the time and energy spent on travelling.
The strategy worked. The advertising agency hired all six as interns.